Monday, April 9.<\/p>\n
We are still in Puerto Villamil seeing some sights and
\npreparing for the longest sail of our life. On Saturday, we
\nchecked out the municipal pier and met out new neighbors in the
\nanchorage — Karyn (French) and Jean-Pierre (Swiss). They have
\nbeen circumnavigating for ten years but have only gotten as far
\nas the Galapagos. They have a beautiful Catana 471 (“Intiac”,
\nnamed after their grandchildren) and will be leaving for the
\nPacific crossing about the same time as we will. Without
\nLaura’s French language skills we could not struck up this nice
\nfriendship. In the afternoon, we took a taxi into the national
\npark and did some short hikes. The taxi (a pickup truck) took
\nus to each trail head and waited as we hiked. The landscape is
\nbleak vocanic rock that heats up incredibly in the equatorial
\nsun. We never seem to get an early start so it is pretty hot on
\nland once we get going. We hiked to the “wall of tears” which
\nis all that remains of a prison that had an atrocious reputation
\nin its years of operation. We also hiked up to a “mirador”
\n(viewpoint) on top of a volcanic hill, and to a lava tunnel
\nleading into the ocean.<\/p>\n
Sunday we hired Gonzolo, a national park guide, to take us
\nup to volcano Sierra Negra. This involved taking his pick-up
\ntruck up a very dusty dirt road for an hour and then hiking a
\nshort distance to the second largest volcanic crater in the
\nworld. It was impressive to see and hotter than hell. We had
\nlunch with Ozkan Gulkanak of “Kayitsiz”. Ozkan is a young
\nTurkish guy who is single-handing a wooden 28 foot boat of his
\nown design. He is a very gregarious character who, it seems, is
\nknown by everyone on sail boats in the Galapagos. We asked him
\nhow he keeps a safe watch when sailing alone and he said that he
\nis not worried about collision. When we returned to the boat
\nlate in the afternoon, we saw our friends Michael and Britta on
\n“Vera” enter the bay and anchor next to us. Vera is the boat
\nthat we met sailing from Bonaire to the San Blas Islands, and we
\nspent some time with them in Panama. To our surprise (and
\ntheirs), an Ecuadorian navy officer came to their boat soon
\nafter they anchored (on Easter Sunday), and said that they must
\nreport to the Capitan del Puerto by 7 am. The reason is that
\nthey were flying the German flag and the German boats that left
\nhere on Friday and Saturday apparently did so without following
\nthe check-in procedures and paying their fees.<\/p>\n
Today, we found an internet cafe and tried to catch up on
\nemail but the connection speeds were abysmal. We met Michael
\nand Britta and had a long lunch catching up on events since we
\nlast saw them at Isla Grande, Panama. We asked them if they had
\nmet Ozkan, the single-handing Turk anchored in front of us, and
\nit turns out they did. When approaching the Galapagos in the
\nfog two weeks ago, Ozkan’s boat almost ran into “Vera” while
\nOzkan was asleep. Britta had to use her fog horn to awaken him.
\n This was the only boat that “Vera” saw on her crossing from
\nPanama. Small ocean.<\/p>\n
After lunch, Laura and I took a wonderful excursion by boat
\nto “La Tintoreras”, the black lava shoals and islands and form
\none boundary of the anchorage. We had an excellent guide
\n(guides are required) and were able to see Galapagos penguins,
\nboobies, marine iguanas, sharks, rays, sea lions and more. Part
\nof the excursion is a walk on paths cut into the jagged black
\nvocanic rock of “La Tintoreras.” There are long, deep fissures
\nin the rock filled with sea water and at least 50 white-tipped
\nsharks (known as “tintoreras” in Spanish). After the walk, we
\nsnorkeled off the excursion boat and got to swim with sea lions.
\n Our guide had a fish chart with him in the water and would
\npoint to fish and then to its picture and name in the chart as
\nwe snorkeled.<\/p>\n
This was our last tour in the Galapagos. Tomorrow will be
\ndevoted to final preparations for our big sail to Nuka Hiva in
\nthe Marquesas. The weather forecast is not very good — there
\nis no wind nearby and none coming anytime soon. We downloaded
\na wind forecast as a GRIB file that has the tradewinds starting
\nsouth of 5 degrees south latitude. Other cruisers on the way to
\nthe Marquesas have called in on the SSB radio to confirm that
\nthey needed to motor past 5 degrees, one said as far as 8
\ndegrees south, to get good tradewinds. It is a day and one-half
\nof motoring for us to get down to 5 degrees south. We have
\nplenty of fuel but we much prefer to sail. We expect to leave
\non our 3000 nautical mile (3500 regular mile) passage to the
\nMarquesas on Wednesday, but might hang on here for another day
\ndepending on circumstances. It will be the longest sail of our
\nlives and there will be just the two of us on Sabbatical III.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday, April 9. We are still in Puerto Villamil seeing some sights and preparing for the longest sail of our life. On Saturday, we checked out the municipal pier and met out new neighbors in the anchorage — Karyn (French) and Jean-Pierre (Swiss). They have been circumnavigating for ten years but have only gotten as … <\/p>\n